As demand for petroleum increases, so too does interest in renewable feedstocks for manufacturing biofuels and biochemicals. The use of lignocellulosic biomass as a feedstock for such manufacturing processes has been studied since the 1970s. Lignocellulosic biomass is attractive because it is abundant, renewable, domestically produced, and does not compete with food industry uses.
Many potential lignocellulosic feedstocks are available today, including agricultural residues, woody biomass, municipal waste, oilseeds/cakes and sea weeds, to name a few. At present these materials are either used as animal feed, biocompost materials, are burned in a cogeneration facility or are landfilled.
Lignocellulosic biomass is recalcitrant to degradation as the plant cell walls have a structure that is rigid and compact. The structure comprises crystalline cellulose fibrils embedded in a hemicellulose matrix, surrounded by lignin. This compact matrix is difficult to access by enzymes and other chemical, biochemical and biological processes. Cellulosic biomass materials (e.g., biomass material from which substantially all the lignin has been removed) can be more accessible to enzymes and other conversion processes, but even so, naturally-occurring cellulosic materials often have low yields (relative to theoretical yields) when contacted with hydrolyzing enzymes. Lignocellulosic biomass is even more recalcitrant to enzyme attack. Furthermore, each type of lignocellulosic biomass has its own specific composition of cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin.
While a number of methods have been tried to extract structural carbohydrates from lignocellulosic biomass, they are either too expensive, produce too low a yield, leave undesirable chemicals in the resulting product, or simply degrade the sugars.
Monosaccharides from renewable biomass sources could become the basis of chemical and fuels industries by replacing, supplementing or substituting petroleum and other fossil feedstocks. However, techniques need to be developed that will make these monosaccharides available in large quantities and at acceptable purities and prices.